The trial of 16 people accused of involvement in the alleged abduction and murder of 353 young men in Congo Republic opened on Thursday, six years after the victims went missing, Reuters reported. The defendants, mostly serving army and police officers, face charges including genocide and crimes against humanity. None of them are being held in custody during the trial. The first batch of eight, including several army generals and the director of Congo's police, appeared before a special court on Thursday flanked by their bodyguards. The streets of the former French colony's capital Brazzaville emptied as Congolese watched the eagerly awaited trial glued to television screens or radio posts. The case dates back to May 1999, when refugees from the country's civil war returning to their homeland across the Congo river were stopped by troops at the Brazzaville Beach port, according to testimony gathered by rights groups. Young men were separated out, tortured, taken away and killed by forces loyal to President Denis Sassou Nguesso on the grounds that they may have been members of a rival faction, the groups say.
